SWAMP DOGG

Photo by John Wooler, Pointblank

Interview by Richie Unterberger (September 1998)

"If you know the extension of the party with whom you
wish to speak, dial it and stop wasting our time! If you have money
due us, owed us, or just for us, please wait until this message is over
and SCREAM your name! We may be listening!" -Swamp Dogg's answering
machine, February 1997

As is apparent from the above comic diatribe,
Swamp Dogg is not a man to take himself or the music business too seriously.
You've got to have a sense of humor, one imagines, to keep plugging away
in the music business for more than thirty years without anything resembling
an across-the-board smash. Even in the rock and R&B underground, Swamp
Dogg remains, in keeping with his nickname, a somewhat murky figure. He's
not easily pigeonholed as either a rock singer or soul singer; he's not
nearly aggressive or weird enough for the cutting-edge tastemakers of alternative
rock and hardcore rap, yet way too weird for pop radio. He also finds himself
in the odd situation of drawing a cult consisting of mostly white listeners,
although his music is soaked in African-American R&B and soul.

Before the 1970's, Swamp Dogg was Jerry Williams,
journeyman soul singer, songwriter, and producer. Should the formidable
cross-licensing obstacles be surmounted, someone no doubt could put together
a hell of a compilation of his sixties efforts, which saw him work with
second-tier soul acts like Gary U.S. Bonds, Patti LaBelle, the Exciters,
and Charlie & Inez Foxx. There were also singles under his own name,
like the elegiac ballad "Baby You're My Everything." But he really didn't
find his voice until changing his name to Swamp Dogg and releasing albums
in the early seventies that married the increased social consciousness
of funk to a uniquely comic sensibility and raunchy sexual enthusiasm.

Like a strange combination of Sly Stone's progressive
funk with Frank Zappa's lyrical absurdism, he's continued grinding out
records for a rather astonishing variety of labels, usually heard by only
a few. These are often deceptively normal sounding until you get to lyrics
about a wedding ceremony in which the singer's son is about to get married
to someone the father knows all too well, and song titles like "I've Never
Been to Africa (And It's Your Fault)." The U.S. government was concerned
enough about his anti-Vietnam War activities to place him on the famed
Nixon enemies list for a while. His notoriety and oddity has sometimes
overshadowed his continued vocal talents; soul with a pop sensibility and
a high, pleading edge, he's sparked reasonable comparisons to Jackie Wilson,
Van Morrison, and Percy Sledge.

Q: You were involved in a lot of records in the
'60's, in the performing, producing, and songwriting end as Jerry Williams.
But these weren't nearly as unique as the stuff you put out when you took
the name Swamp Dogg in the '70's.

S: I was thinking along those lines when I
was doing my productions and cutting my soul records; actually starting
in 1960, was my first nationally released records. At that time, I was
in with the norm. I was being what everybody wanted, felt they needed.
I was just trying to help supply the demand. But while I was out there
watching what was going on, it hit me that I wasn't nearly as good as those
people at the top of the ladder who were supplying the demand. And my songs
were just as good, but I didn't feel that I had as much heart in my songs
as they had in theirs. Because when I sang about being wonderful, I didn't
really believe it. 'Cause I've never been caught up in a "I'm a great lookin'
guy, and when I walk onstage, the bitches fall out." I never believed no
shit like that. And I had good reason not to believe it, because it never
fucking happened.

I was very disappointed with where I was going
with something that I loved more than anything in the fucking world. So
I just took a chance and bet on myself. And I said, I've got to change
everything, and I've got to be drastic in this change. If you knew me,
you'd know that it took a lot for me to make up my mind. Because I've always
been crazy about my name-Jerry Williams Jr., I love my name, I love my
father, I loved carrying my father's name. And to have to change it to
something just to catch your ear was a heavy decision for me. But I did
it. And that enabled me to jump into some music that I wanted to, some
lyrics that I wanted to do.

My music really didn't change too much. You
could hear the same structure in the '60's as I did in the '70's, in the
'80's, and I'm doing now. The same basic chord structure, the same basic
grooves, just dressed a little. Put some ragged jeans on the song, and
some sneakers instead of Florsheim shoes. That's why it evolved to that
point. I had a hell of a lot of influences that I've wanted to fuse, like
Sly Stone and Amos Milburn. I wanted to see what the two would song like
together, have a boogie thing running under kind of a funk-rock.

Right now I'd be running around. I just saw
a hell of an oldies show the other night. But I'd be running around singing
"Baby You're My Everything" and "I'm the Lover Man" on these fucking oldies
shows and not liking it. I know I wouldn't like it. It's almost like your
life is over, and there's a little piece of earth where you could have
another chance on. But it's good for those... a lot of people love it.
And you've got some acts out here making more money now than they did then.
And God bless 'em. They got a chance to at least reap some of the harvest.
But I wouldn't like doing it.

I must say that most every deal I had except
my first two in 1960 and '61, I went in with a finished piece of product.
I was cutting my records first, and then going in. I didn't stay with one
company no longer than one record, because if it didn't happen, I was on
someplace else, and I didn't never feel like the companies were fucking
me, although maybe they were. But I never felt like the companies were
fucking me. You know how some people- they walked away from the business
because the company didn't pay them or some shit, or something had happened.
That wasn't my way.

Most of the stuff I did in the early '60's,
I wrote it in the late '50's. What I was writing in the '60's was a lot
of songs about being gay. Now I'm not gay, although there ain't shit wrong
with being gay. But we would write a whole bunch of songs about gay people.
I've still got one of them- "The Two of Us." Gary U.S. Bonds and I wrote
it. And we were writing several songs- we wrote about ten songs like that.
It was like, we wrote a lot of songs that I guess we'd have to say was
just for our own enjoyment. I hadn't thought about recording them at that
time. We would do songs like, we would do tributes to people who were alive,
but we did 'em like they were dead. We thought this was funny, I know that
it's sick. But we were doing a lot of sick shit. But this was just for
our own enjoyment.

Later in the '60's, we started writing some
acid-type lyrics. But there was no call for it. People'd say, we don't
want this shit. What is this shit? I put one of them on my first album,
Total Destruction, a thing called "Dust Your Head Color Red." I
had started writing some songs that nobody, nobody, wanted to record. Including
Jerry Williams or Gary Bonds or anybody else in our little circle, or outside
our circle. That was another reason Swamp Dogg was right on time when he
arrived. 'Cause he would sing any fucking thing! Swamp Dogg would give
it a fucking try.

Q: So were some of the songs on the first Swamp Dogg
records actually written in the 1960's?

S: We had a few songs before the '70's, yeah.
Total Destruction was written in '68, because I cut the album, like
the latter part of '69, it came out in '70. We had a line in Total Destruction
called "let's find out how to test the grass, now watch them get the law
passed"- well hell, grass has just been semi-legalized through the last
election. But we were anticipating it, shit, 27 years ago.

The idea was to stop the war and all that shit,
and everybody come together, love each other around the world. It was very
idealistic, I guess, but that's the way I thinking. I still think that
fucking way. Nothing that heavy. What was happening was heavy. But my thoughts
weren't that heavy. My thoughts--what I was thinking was right before my
eyes. I could see it. So I really didn't have to give it that much thought.
I'd just write about it. Because it bothered me one way or the other, so
I wrote about it.

Q: Your voice often sounds like Van Morrison, especially
on those early records.

S: Yeah, but not to the point that I was trying
to sound like him. I never tried to sound like anybody. I've had people
say that I sound a little like Jackie Wilson on a lot of my stuff. I mean,
I really fucking wish I could sing 10% as well as Jackie Wilson. I'd be
a fucking superstar right now. The last Van Morrison album came out about
a year ago. When I listened to it, I finally could hear what the people
were saying about me sounding like Van Morrison. Then I often wondered
(and this is no ego thing) if maybe Van Morrison ever heard some of my
shit and liked some. But I guess nobody would really want to think that,
since he is who he is, and I am who I'm not.

Q: Your relationship with Elektra Records didn't
seem to be a smooth one.

S: I was with Jane Fonda, and they just didn't
have no eyes for that shit at all. We were out protesting the war and all
that, and they said, 'fuck you, we don't need this.' It was alright for
MC5 to come on stage and pull their pants down and shit and stuff like
that. It was a very strange fucking company. When they signed me, they
had one black act on the label. And when they signed me, they released
that act. It was like one to a customer. That was the Voices of East Harlem
they had. They let them go and signed me. They didn't want no more black
acts. They told me that. 'Cause I asked. I was really improper. They said
'no, we don't need any.'

I sat in the lobby one day, talking to Jim
Morrison. This is in '71. And they wouldn't let either one of us come in.
We were both there to see Jac Holzman, and they didn't want Jim back there,
and they didn't want me back there. When they saw us talking together,
it really was fucked up. He's high, and I'm crazy. But we both got to see
him.

Q: How did you end up getting involved with Free
the Army? [Free The Army was a mixed-media entourage, also including Fonda,
Dick Gregory, and Donald Sutherland, formed in opposition to the Vietnam
War.]

S: My attorney at the time, Robert Fitzpatrick,
was representing Jane Fonda. And he was representing me. It was almost
kind of a pseudo-nepotism. But only because it worked. I was doing something
that she was doing also. And my wife Yvonne is a hell of a coordinator.
She was brought aboard to help coordinate the concert at the Washington
Monument, the gathering at the Washington Monument. She kind of was like
working as, kind of like a liaison for Jane, just for that brief period.
We also did a documentary at that time, but it never came out, 'cause the
documentary turned into more of an artist ego trip. Everybody started showcasing
instead of... you could see that it wasn't real. It wasn't like for the...
it wasn't a Free The Army thing, it was like watch me and give me a fucking
deal. That type of thing. And I'm gonna say, I wasn't a part of that. 'Cause
I already had a fucking deal.

I made Nixon's [enemy] list. Ain't that a bitch?
I made his fucking list. He had everybody on the fucker. By associating
with Jane Fonda, that immediately put me on.

Q: You did a version of "God Bless America" around
that time that caused some controversy as well.

S: As a matter of fact, Elektra didn't even
put the proper title down on the album. The song is actually called "God
Bless America For What?" I switched it, and called it "God Bless America
For What?" And they refused to print that. They would not do it. I mean
they were very, very fucking straight.

Q: Did anything come of getting onto Nixon's list?

S: I don't know when it stopped. It wasn't
too much for them to pick up, because first of all, I wasn't try to help
overthrow the government, any of that kind of shit. I was just trying to
enlighten people and say what I thought. I had the right to say in a free
society. I guess after a while they said, this sonofabitch ain't about
too much of nothing, he's silly.

Q: It's real strange that your audience nowadays
is mostly white, because your music is so much in the soul and R&B
vein.

S: I know it. And my messages are black. Most
of 'em. But they're mighty universal messages. But man, I don't really,
I really don't know. I can come up with, I can sit here and tell you several
things about what I think. Number one, black radio never played me that
much. At the time, 1970, it was that underground radio movement. It was
secondary pop radio, the areas that I would take off in. Like my record
in 1981 on Takoma went to #1 the first week out in Montpelier, Vermont.
There ain't no niggers in Montpelier, Vermont, man! We don't be fucking
around no ski resorts and shit!

My music basically is for people who don't
mind taking a minute to think and that kind of shit. It could be bigger.
It's just companies, they can't seem to find that hole for the pigeon.
So when actually all you gotta do- I structure my albums in a way that
they can be marketed, and merchandised successfully via retail. But the
companies don't do it. It takes a few dollars to do it. A couple of them
did it, we sold some product. But nothing like I know we could have, and
still can.

Q: Which are your favorite records?

S: The one on Fantasy, I like a lot. I like
Total Destruction to Your Mind and I like Tagged Apple, that's
the one with Sam Stone. Those are my three favorites. The one that's my
main favorite hasn't come out. I don't know if it's coming out, when it's
coming out, that's a live album I did when I signed with Virgin, who was
doing my 25th anniversary album. They put out everything but the goddamn
anniversary album. So that was a live album, my first live album, and it's
a monster. We did a remake of "Baby You're My Everything." It's a really
a live show, with all of the monologues and the jokes and the shit. That's
my really favorite, if it ever comes out, in some due time, I think it'll
be a hit with a few dollars behind it.

I like most of my albums. The only thing I
dislike about a couple of my albums is I didn't like the mixes at the time,
and I'd loved to have remixed a couple of them-only a couple of them. But
that's it.

Q: What do you think are the most significant ways
your music has changed since you first started making records as Swamp
Dogg?

S: The songwriting hasn't changed at all. I
have become more and more... I was daring early in my songwriting as Swamp
Dogg. But people were afraid of it, 'cause I was using some profanities
and so forth on records, which now is very normal. But the jocks, that's
one thing that scared the black jocks. When they saw Swamp Dogg records,
they said, man, you can't put on this goddamn record. That's one fucking
cut, but you ain't gotta play it! It's the singing. 'Cause I write all
kind of songs. I don't just write one type of song.

Q: What other kinds of songs are you most into writing?

S: Country. I like writing country songs. Mercury
was signing me to a country contract, and got cold feet.

Q: Was it because of the songs, or...

S: It was because of the color. And I understood
it. This was my friend, he was running Mercury Records at the time in Nashville.
And we put this whole thing together. They said, 'yeah, man, I think it's
a good idea. Let's go.' And he called me after we'd been through months
and said, 'This shit ain't gonna fly upstairs.' I said, 'well, man, I understand
it, fuck it.' Which I did. I didn't want him losing a fucking job trying
to drag another black into country music. They had Charley Pride, and I
guess that was enough. So I did a country album. There are some great country
things on there, man.

Q: A lot of your writing is either about politics
or sex, sometimes about both. Do you have any preference for one or the
other area?

S: It depends on my mood. It really does. I
mean, sometimes I'm in a romance/sex mood, sometimes I'm in a 'what's going
on in the world.' It just depends on my feelings. Like do you like chicken
better than steak? Depends on what's happening. Like one 'bout as well
as the other.

Q: Do you think your stuff influenced George Clinton
to go into more ambitious albums with some sociopolitical comment in the
1970's?

S: I don't think so. I think George had enough
pent-up creativity that once he unzipped his mind, it was enough to just
keep him going right on up till today. I don't think George was influenced
by too many people. I bet he wasn't influenced at all by me. Not at all.
I don't think I had anything to offer George Clinton. He's a fucking genius.

I have heard a lot of my music in other people's
music. But here again, country music, like when Eddie Rabbitt... I know
I influenced Eddie Rabbitt, 'cause Eddie Rabbitt actually rewrote my fucking
song, and did a thing called "Pure Love," which was a total takeoff on
my fucking record and melody. But as far as people-there's a great, great
session man around, played on everybody's records-played piano, organ and
shit. His name is William Smitty Smith. Smitty played on everybody's records.
Matter of fact, he played on that hellacious piano solo on "So Excited"
by the Pointer Sisters. I taught Smitty how to play piano. We came from
the same hometown. I had influence on him.

Now, he carried my influence into a lot of
people's music. He outplays me. He had a stroke a couple years ago, he
can still out-fucking play me. It was like the teacher and the student
kind of thing. But he took my licks. He said, 'I love this shit that I
learned from you.' He put it in so many people's shit-Bob Dylan, you name
it, 'cause he's played with them all. Linda Ronstadt- I've heard my keyboard
licks in a lot of shit. But it was delivered by him.

As far as people singing me, I think somebody's
gotta be mad to sing like me. I haven't heard any of that. I think I've
influenced a lot of people with my will to grow forward, to continue, to
overcome the bullshit and not stop just because the record company, my
record didn't sell. Fuck that! Ain't nobody guarantees your record's gonna
sell. If that was the case, most of us wouldn't do anything but one time.
Like go to Vegas. If you go to Vegas and you don't hit, you don't say fuck,
I ain't going there no more. The place wasn't designed for you alone. You
got millions of people in the fucking world.

Q: Do you see any similarity between some of the
work that you've done and today's rap music?

S: Like you say, there are rappers, they sample
my music and that type of thing. But I don't think we have any mass hysteria
going on. I like more of them than I dislike. There's only rap act out
there that I don't fucking understand. Bone Thugs 'n' Harmony. I can't
understand a motherfucking thing they're saying. I don't think it has shit
to do with the generation gap. 'Cause I've asked motherfuckers their age.
I said, what are these motherfuckers saying? They said, we don't know.
But it's great. I said, well, cool.

It reminds me a little of, in the '50's one
time, you could hear the music, but you couldn't hardly hear what the singer
was saying. And the people were saying, but we're buying it for the beat.
Okay, cool. So I was trying to find out what they're buying it for. 'Cause
Bone Thugs is outselling most of the rap groups. And I love Tupac. Tupac
had a lot to say. Ice Cube used to have a lot to say. He don't say quite
as much as he used to. Ice T got a little- he got a little too emotional
in delivering the message. His anger started to overshadow his creativity.
I think he's got a new album now, I haven't heard that yet.

But most of the rappers out here today, the
newer ones, they're not saying shit. I like the ones with the message.
I always have to have a message. I mean, I like some good-time rap. Tribe
Called Quest, they don't show me shit. I dig MC Breed, his first album,
but then after that, with the lawsuits and shit, and then he started doing
some other shit, and he tried to get real real real dirty. And his career
just went on down the toilet. He did himself a hell of an injustice.

I loved LL Cool J's first couple of albums.
And Public Enemy. I'm starting to like De La Soul a little bit.

Q: What kinds of projects are you working on now
(February 1997)?

S: I got an album that I did over the summer
on Tommy Hunt. Good fuckin' album, too. I'm starting to release my albums
in volumes, two albums to a volume. I'm getting ready to record Little
Johnny Taylor. I wanna go in and just do a blues album. And getting ready
to do an album on my daughter, Antoinette. She did a duet with Tommy, and
that was kind of my way of introducing her to the public. That's going
to be an urban-type thing. And there's an album I've got in mind of doing.
I keep myself pretty busy.

Q: There's been some mysterious speculation about
your latter-day activities in some things I've read, like reports that
you're driving a taxi?

S: Ain't no fucking taxis out here! [Los Angeles]
I don't even think they're allowed to hang around the airport any more.
Where are the fucking taxis, come to think of it? Maybe I should be driving
one. I still like that rumor better than the one I heard that I was dead
one time. I really didn't like that. That bothered the shit out of me.
Driving a taxi don't bother me. At least I'm getting money. But that dead
thing... I'm supposed to have died in San Francisco. I never found out
what I died of.

My wife is always telling me, you could never
drive a fucking taxi, 'cause I get lost all the time. 'Cause I'll be in
a daze sometime and go right past my fucking street. That is really weird.
That's one for the book.

The only fucking thing missing in my life right
now is money. I've got my fucking life exactly like I want it. I just need
some money. The money'll be there, but I'm talking more than that. When
I was in the '70's, I was very fucking wealthy. But I was a fucking basket
case. I had a nervous breakdown, I had an identity crisis, I didn't know
who the fuck I was. And I wasn't happy with the money. So I have like become
everything that I really wanted to be, found my fucking self, got my shit
together. Now if could just reach back and get my fucking money that I
had, I'd be cool. My whole fucking life right now is just putting the dollars
together, getting the dollars and holding things together, that kind of
shit. Other than that, I consider myself one of the three happiest motherfuckers
on earth. At this time. And once I get my money... my bank'll be the first.